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Barbara Houghton began her career in 1974 teaching photography at Metropolitan State University in Denver where she was the lone photo faculty member. In 1992, she came to Northern Kentucky University as chair and also taught with Barry Andersen in photography. She ended her 41 year career at NKU in May 2015.

During this long career, she received an NEA Photo Survey Grant, a couple NEA and Colorado Arts Council Special Project grants for lecture series and workshops, an Ohio Arts Council grant, two Kentucky Foundation for Women grants, and others. Her work is in public collections at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, Denver Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Center for Creative Photography, LightWork, Syracuse, Colorado State Historical Museum, State of Colorado, Arizona State University, Scripts Howard Corporation and others. To share her love of travel and photography, she taught study abroad courses in London, England & Scotland, Ireland, India, Italy, Australia, and Greece. She has shown work most often nationally in a variety of solo and group exhibitions with highlights at Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts, The Carnegie Art Center, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, pARTS Gallery, Minneapolis, Huntington Museum in WV, Kohler Art Center, Cornell University, Franklin Institute, Philadelphia and others.

Graduates from both Metro and NKU photography programs have gone on to graduate schools at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Arizona State University, University of Arizona, University of Colorado, Vermont College of Fine Arts, Maine College of Art, San Francisco Art Institute, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Nebraska, University of Denver, University of Cincinnati. Other graduates are working nationally and internationally as professional photojournalists, studio photographers, commercial photographers, architectural photographers, fashion photographers, photographic retouch and compositors, web designers, software specialists and trainers, curators, gallery directors, and fine art photographers.

Some of NKU's graduates are showing elsewhere in other FotoFocus venues.